Photo: David Livingston/Getty Images (2009)
Sample of authors
Koontz, Dean R.
Dean Ray Koontz is an American author of suspense literature. He was born in Everett, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a dysfunctional family with a violent, alcoholic father and a suppressed mother. He found comfort in reading and watching movies, and he began to write short stories, which he sold to friends and relatives when he was eight years old. He attended Shippensburg State College (now...
Literary figures
Joe Ashworth
Gender: Male
He is a detective sergeant in Northumberland, married and with a daughter Jessie. He is also a faithful companion to the eccentric and unconventional Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope in a suite of police novels by Ann Cleeves. Ashworth is one of the few people in whom Vera trusts – she regards him more like a son. However, she is forever forgetting what his wife and daughter are called…